"Opera in the Park" is coming to the San Francisco/Oakland suburbs with barihunk Zachary Gordin, soprano Kristin Clayton and conductor Bryan Nies. On Sunday, June 24th, the singers will perform with Festival Opera at the Civic Park in Walnut Creek at 5 PM.
Zachary Gordin was most recently featured as a soloist in Oakland East Bay Symphony's Carmina Burana. He's been a regular on our site and was also featured in our charity calendar. On June 1st, at Sacramento's Pride celebration, he premiered composer Clint Borzoni's "A Nation
Announcing Itself" taken from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."
The "Opera in the Park" program will include music from Verdi's "Il Trovatore," Bizet's "Carmen," Bernstein's "West Side Story," Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," Puccini's "La boheme" and Bernstein's "Candide."
Attendees are encouraged to bring a picnic or buy pizza at the park. No alcoholic beverages are allowed, but you can get drunk on the music.
Been to Oakland lately? We have three reasons to go: Great food and drinks, amazing music and barihunks.
Friday's travel section of the New York Times named Oakland, California as one of the 45 places to visit in 2012. Northern Californians have long known that Oakland is San Francisco's fog-free counterpart across the Bay, where young people have been moving in droves to open restaurants and bars, art galleries, buy homes and dubbing it the "Brooklyn of the West."
The New York Times wrote, "The historic Fox Theater reopened in 2009 and quickly cemented its status as one of the Bay Area's top music venues, drawing acts like Wilco and the Decemberists. Meanwhile, the city's ever more sophisticated restaurants are now being joined by upscale cocktail bars, turning once-gritty Oakland into an increasingly appealing place to be after dark."
Oakland resident Zachary Gordin as he appears in the 2012 Barihunks Calendar
Classical music fans have long known that some of the most innovative programming occurs under conductor Michael Morgan with his Oakland/East Bay Symphony Orchestra. His upcoming Carmina Burana will feature barihunk Zachary Gordin and it will be paired with Glazunov's rarely performed Saxophone Concerto from 1934. There is one performance on Friday, January 27th and tickets are available HERE. The performance is at the historic Paramount Theater, which is walking distance away from the recently restored Fox Theater (pictured above).
Eugene Brancoveanu
If you're looking for the really "hot" show in town, then head over to West Oakland's "The Crucible," where they have pioneered the concept of "fire operas." And we're literally talking about opera with real fire. A performance of a fire opera at The Crucible will make Brunnhilde's "Immolation Scene" look like a burning match. The Crucible is actually an industrial training center where people learn a variety of fire skills. Their current offering, "Machine," will feature molten metal pours, fire performers, glass blowers and blacksmiths.
MACHINE was written, conceived and directed by innovative director Mark Streshinsky. The music is by Clark Suprynowicz, who is known for his jazz and rock infused compositions of operatic and symphonic works.
The plot is based on a short story by science fiction author Derek J. Goodman, MACHINE is set in a fiery industrial universe in which workers have sold themselves into a lifetime of servitude. When one worker regains his power of self-determination, the story ignites into an explosive brew of escape plots, alliances and unlikely love interests
Performances are on January 11-14 and 18-21. Tickets are available HERE.
Zachary Gordin is new to our site and he's part of what we're calling "A Night of Barihunks" at the Oakland East Bay Symphony on November 13th. The former countertenor will be joining barihunks Brian Leerhuber and Joshua Bloom in a night of operatic scenes (including tenors and sopranos, as well).
Bloom and Leerhuber have both appeared on this site before. Leerhuber was featured for his amazing chest and Gordin gives him some serious competition in that category. These are two guys who need to be featured in the shirtless barihunk roles that provide this site with content (i.e. - Pearl Fishers, Rape of Lucretia, Don Giovanni and Billy Budd).
Gordin has recently performed with the Oakland East Bay Symphony in a concert performance of “Otello." In August, he appeared as Wagner in “Faust” with the Festival Opera in Walnut Creek. If you miss him in "A Night of Barihunks," you can see him portray Enrico in “Lucia di Lammermoor” with North Bay Opera in March 2010.
We hope to see a lot more of Gordin in the future.
